I posted this to iRiver's "Suggestions" forum/bulletin board. Tell me what you think.

"iRiver, you make some fine portable audio devices and I've enjoyed the possibilities of firmware upgradeability in the past but, since I purchased this IMP-150 player in November 2002, one thing I and others tend to find irritating with all portable audio devices is that if you have long (above 30 minutes or so) files like DJ mixes or live perfornances on a disc and you want to get to the middle of it, the only way to do it on the iRiver products (and pretty much any portable device) is by holding a Fast Forward or Rewind button down for a very long time, even if the search speed is set to 6x. Try, for example, to search for the middle of a 300-minute file. Note how long the button must be held down for. At any time, it's not hard for your finger to get tired or it slips, etc. and you are either back to the beginning or at the next file. Very irritating. Since iRiver's products are firmware upgradable and they support their customers, there is chance for a change if enough people request it and they believe it's a logical choice. Here's three proposals for some suggestions for a change:

1. Allow the user to select a time interval by which when the Fast Forward or Rewind button is pushed, the player will jump either back or fourth in the file. An example would be: Set it to 5 minutes and now, when you hit FF or REW, the player will skip 5 minutes ahead or behind in the file. If there is less than five minutes left at the end of the file, the player should just jump to the next file. If the player hasn't advanced past the 5 minute mark, it should just jump back to the beginning, as it already does during a file. This is one of the best choices because it allows the user to skip through long file regardless if the file has a Cuesheet file (*.cue) accompanying it, which would be an ideal situation for live performances and long single tracks but, would still work well for albums, as you can finally skip easier through it. Other users have suggested per cent-age skipping is a good choice as well. For albums, a Cuesheet solution, as described below, will be better but should not be required.

2. Allow the user to make use of a Cuesheet file (*.cue) to jump to individual tracks within a file that contains a whole album. The system should be set up just like the Winamp plug-in "MP3CUE", which does NOT require they Cuesheet file to point to the exact file in question but rather, just requires that both the media and the Cuesheet file have the same file name (eg. Artist Name - Album Name.mp3 & Artist Name - Album Name.cue) and both files must be in the same directory. This solution, at full utilisation, can allow the user to jump to individual tracks within album and indexes within a track; and allow reading of CD-TEXT entries for CD and track artist, album, and songwriter names. An example Cuesheet file looks like this:

PERFORMER Enigma
TITLE "MCMXC A.D."
FILE "Enigma - MCMXC A.D..wav" WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "The Voice of Enigma"
PERFORMER Enigma
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:00:25
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "Principles of Lust: A. Sadeness, B. Find Love, C. Sadeness (Reprise)"
PERFORMER Enigma
INDEX 01 02:22:10
INDEX 02 06:31:05
INDEX 03 11:16:32
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "Callas Went Away"
PERFORMER Enigma
INDEX 01 14:06:05
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "Mea Culpa"
PERFORMER Enigma
INDEX 01 18:33:70
TRACK 05 AUDIO
TITLE "The Voice and the Snake"
PERFORMER Enigma
INDEX 01 23:37:27
TRACK 06 AUDIO
TITLE "Knocking on Forbidden Doors"
PERFORMER Enigma
INDEX 01 25:17:25
TRACK 07 AUDIO
TITLE "Back to the Rivers of Belief: A. Way to Eternity, B. Hallelujah, C. The River..."
PERFORMER Enigma
INDEX 01 29:48:62
INDEX 02 32:09:65
INDEX 03 36:15:25

As you can see, this particular file has CD-TEXT album artist name and title name, as well as track artist and title names. It also has Indexes within each track, for skipping to the individual sub-compositions within a track. The particular file name for this Cuesheet is "Enigma - MCMXC A.D..cue" and the MP3 file is the same name. These files are located in the ROOT\Albums\Enigma\MCMXC AD directory. You should also take note that any artist, album, songwriter, or track title that have only ONE word are not in quotation marks ("). For files with accompanying Cuesheet files, allow the user to either select navigation method 1 (described above) or method 2 (Cuesheet navigation). When using Cuesheet navigation, allow the user to skip to each track or, if indexes are present within that track, each index within the file as well.

3. Allow the user to Fast Forward or Rewind WITHOUT holding the button down.

All three of these possible options should be options via a sub-menu in one of the 6 main menus (logically the General or Control menu). The priority of these should be easiest to hardest. I believe it is easiest to add proposal number 3 first, as it is simpler than the others. It's second-easiest and the most useful to add proposal number 1. It's hardest to fully add and utilise proposal number 2, as it's possible to display a lot of information (including, but not limited to: disc artist, title, songwriter, and catalog number; track artist, title, songwriter, and ISRC number; file, disc, track, and index elapsed or remaining time with frame (one 75th of a second) accuracy) on any given file via the Cuesheet and how much of the format is utilised.

In closing, I kindly reccomend that iRiver look over all of this information and decide the best route for the future of long file navigation. Thanks for your continued support and excellent products. I always reccomend everyone I know who likes portable audio to buy iRiver.

PS: Anyone with long files and an iRiver portable audio device (any iMP-x, iFP-x, iHP/iGP-x, or iDP-x) would benefit from this solution."

Last edited by ali92 on Dec-02-2003 at 22:11